Cindy-Lou Dale

It’s been some 30 years since the beginning of the sexual revolution. Through our constant demand for equality in everything, we may find that we have played the feminist card too many times. Have we made males redundant in society as husbands, fathers and providers by removing them from the lives of their children?

 

The destruction of families plays a significant part in the development of our youth. We have the second highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the developed world, with one in five UK babies brought up without a father. In 2000, near 39,000 under 18’s in England became pregnant – 45% of these ended in abortion and 7,617 were to under 16’s of which 55% ended in abortion. It is probable that these young girls had problems at school before becoming pregnant, and once pregnant, it’s less likely they will complete their education, leaving them with no qualifications and ensuring a future subsidised by the British benefits system, which has recently enjoyed a substantial increase.

 

When did the disintegration of family values begin?

 

There has been a gradual failing of authority in our British homes which has been further fuelled by the new discipline measures at school, sending bullying spiralling out of control. Our leadership blame children’s television programmes, saying they encourage bullying in schools and threaten action. Then they change tack and blame incompetent and abusive parents for youth crime and unruly behaviour in schools. They further claim bad parenting has created a cycle of disrespect among children, which starts at school and lasts throughout their lives.

 

Violent crime rose an alarming 24% in 2002, according to official figures. The number of violent attacks reported to the police went up 24% to 790,000. Drug crime went up by 18% in the year to April 2003. Daily Mail 5/4/2003

 

To combat bad parenting skills a ‘parenting order’ scheme has been put in place. This scheme allows courts to force the parents of persistent truants or children who are committing crimes to undergo training.

 

The number of criminals aged 11 and under has soared by 150 per cent over the past ten years, figures revealed yesterday. Children aged between 10 and 17 committed 49,200 crimes last year. Daily Mail 30/12/2003

 

However, few people know that British schools are forced to undercut the number of expulsions by a third or face a fine of up to £6,000 for every disruptive pupil excluded. Assaults on teachers from pupils and parents are common place, which is evidence of poor parenting and long-term social problem in which parents don't know how to behave and don't know how to bring up their children. One London secondary school was forced to re-admit pupils they had permanently excluded for wielding knives and conducting gang-like vendettas.

 

We're not just drunk. We're drunk and angry, out of it and up for it.

 

The Government has been talking tough on crime for several years yet prisoners are released before they’ve served half their sentence. According to the Home Office more than 24,000 gun crimes occurred in 2003, nevertheless 966 televised shows aired incidents involving firearms.

 

The alarming increase in gang rape is linked to the surge in teenage gang culture. According to Scotland Yard there was 1 gang rape for every day in 2003 with more than 50% of the suspects aged 15 to 21.

 

Every weekend, Britain's town centres are transformed into scenes of violent drunken mayhem. The British binge drinking culture has spiralling out of control. They are fuelling an epidemic of violence outside pubs and clubs, which threatens to overwhelm the police who don't have the resources to effectively deal with serious crime. They certainly won't be able to allocate officers to tackle graffiti, burnt-out cars, vandalism, abusive neighbours and drinking in the streets, which have all been ‘targeted’ in various schemes to combat anti-social behaviour, and branded ‘tough’ to impress the traditional hang 'em high contingent in the tabloids.

 

However, we cannot cast blame Tony Blair's Government for permitting extended trading hours to bars and pubs. Nor can we point a finger at the drinks industry that encourages our youth with cheap booze. Perhaps it is time to admit that we, as parents, are faced with a problem in raising our children. There should be no need to ‘target’, ‘focus’ or ‘crack down’ on anything other than sound parenting, house rules and discipline, which is dealt with on a daily basis.

 

How did this chaos come about? When did Britain become a nation known for their hooliganism, violent drunks and teenage pregnancies? Our youth feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. They are under continual pressure to succeed, yet the media continually bombards them with destructive images. There is general lack of societal insight into their pressures, differing unity, yet few values remain for them to uphold. There is little fairness and only modest equality. There is no love in their lives, only room for hostility, which breeds prejudice, spawning hate, enraging them still further.

 

We forgot to teach our children the art of living. Guide them in the importance of self-worth, self-respect and self-control. It’s never too late for positive change.

 

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© Cindy-Lou Dale 2005